10 Fun Games You Might Have Missed

Last year I celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the Sony Playstation with a piece entitled, “15 Years of the Sony Playstation – 15 Fun Games You Might Have Missed.” It proved to be a pretty popular piece with readers, so this year, in honour of the 10th anniversary of the Microsoft Xbox, we’re going to do something very similar.

Please note this is not a “Top 10″ list highlighting what I consider the absolute best games available on the original Xbox. Rather, this is a look at ten games that have had a strong cult following since they were released on the Xbox, even if they are obscure or unheard of by the mainstream or casual gamer. This list will only include games that were Xbox console exclusives. This means no remakes, no cross-console titles, and no titles that have been re-released on XBLA as a digital download. I’ve also tried to make sure the games are available for thirty dollars or less, so that any gamer can pick them up and see why these titles still hold up a decade later. There is one big exception to that rule though… These ten games will also be covered in alphabetical order, so as not to give the impression that one game is better than another. The unintended side effect of this is that we’ll be starting with the first Xbox game I ever reviewed and ending with the last. Odd coincidence, no? The goal of this piece is to inspire a combination of conversation amongst older gamers, nostalgia over titles both loved and forgotten, and hopefully exposing younger gamers to ten titles that might not have had the largest advertising but still have a loyal following due to their quality. Who knows? If you missed one (or more) of these ten games, perhaps this piece will inspire you to track them down and see why they hold a special place in the hearts of gamers who experienced them.

You might not recognize the name Arkane Studios, but they are the team behind the upcoming first person stealth game Dishonored (being published by Bethesda) and they did the art design for Bioshock 2. This little French development company got its start with this partially open source first person RPG that was originally intended to be Ultima Underworld III. Ultima Underworld might not be a familiar title to younger gamers, but mention it to someone who works in the industry and they’ll probably talk your ear off about it. The Elder Scrolls, Bioshock, Gears of War, Deus Ex, Half-Life 2, and World of Warcraft were all inspired by Ultima Underworld. It’s one of the most influential games ever and it saddens me to see how forgotten it is by the average gamer. Arx Fatalis was meant to be the third game in the series, but Electronic Arts decided not to give Arkane Studios the license or publish the game. A little retooling and rescripting later, and Arx Fatalis was born. Thank Cthulhu for that, as it ended up being one of the best RPGs for the Xbox.

Arx Fatalis takes place in another world – one where the sun is no more. All life on the planet now lives in a series of connected subterranean caverns built by the dwarves of a time long since past. Humans, trolls, goblins, wererats and more now live in these caves, using magic to grow crops and stay alive. The game begins long after the underearth has been settled. You begin by seeing your character enveloped in a blue light and learn he is an amnesiac who knows nothing of the world or its history. Cheesy and cliche, but an easy way to make you learn the history of Arx Fatalis. You are a prisoner of goblins. You escape. You wander around. You discover a Human outpost where everyone was slaughtered horribly. Then slowly a conspiracy unfolds itself…

There are two big things that make the game memorable. The first is the sheer level of detail. Straight out of old SSI AD&D games like Eye of the Beholder, you have to eat. Of course, you don’t want to eat raw food, so you not only half to kill your meat, but cook it too. You also have to mix ingredients to make anything from bread to potions. You’ll have to learn to repair armour, create a fishing pole and many other things in order to reach your ultimate goal – defeating an avatar of the god of destruction. The depth even extends into spell casting. Taking a page right out of 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, your character will need to trace runes in the air and in real time in order to cast a spell, so there aren’t any instantaneous fireballs here. I loved this back in 2003 and I still love it now. It simulates the time and precision needed to cast magic and forces you to consider timing and location rather than just button mashing. If this turned out to be too hard for a gamer, they had the option of memorizing a spell by doing the runes in a more peaceful situation and then pressing Y to memorize it for a quick release down the road. If even that wasn’t enough, you could turn on arcade magic, which just gave you a menu for quickly selecting spells. So no matter your skill level, you still could wield magic properly. I loved the attention to detail in this game, as including so many small things that most RPGs ignore or forget really helped the kingdom of Arx to come alive for me.